


slow down what you can't control

by glitteration



Series: everybody knows i'm a mf'ing monster [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Cunnilingus, F/M, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-09 23:04:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8916580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteration/pseuds/glitteration
Summary: In which Sinclair's attempt at petty revenge leads to a threesome, because obviously it does.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChancellorGriffin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChancellorGriffin/gifts).



> This is apocrypha for [A Voice Straight to God](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7979368); it would replace the Kabby scene in chapter six. However, reading that isn't necessary to understand this. Mostly it's just "holy shit, we're all gonna die so let's fuck".

Marcus trails after her obediently, dead on his feet now that she's taken away the outlet for all that feverish intensity. There's a bittersweet irony to the situation; now Marcus is the one attempting to subsist on desperate hope alone, with Abby playing the role of merciless voice of reason. 

She laughs at the thought and Marcus turns curious eyes her way, brows snapping together in preparation to take mild offense. 

"Dr. Griffin. Marcus." Before she can explain Pike rounds the corner, looking like a man on a mission.

"Is everything all right?" Of course it isn't, but years of habit make Abby ask regardless. 

"No problems here." He raises his right hand, fist firmly clamped around the neck of a bottle. "Hard to complain about a bottle of Farm Station's best."

Marcus snorts at that, animation returning to his face. "Are you still trotting that line out?"

"Says the man who fell for that line more than once." 

They have the confidence of two men treading paths they've walked a thousand times before, and Marcus looks _young_ , transported back to a time before he'd had enough power to bear the consequences of leadership in the guard.

"Oh, I never fell for it. I just thought it would be a shame to make a man drink alone." Abby laughs and it brings Marcus back to the present, reminding him there's a third voice in the conversation. He nods to Pike, gathering himself to start walking again. "We don't mean to keep you." 

"Nothing to keep me from. I ran into Sinclair in the mess, he said you needed prying out of the control room. I thought a bribe might help." He looks between them, lips twitching, meeting Abby's eyes with approval as Marcus squirms beside her. "But I guess you've already got that taken care of, huh?"

"Charles." Marcus' hands flex at his sides, and he looks torn. That—and the bottle Pike's carrying so openly—is more than enough to make her choice simple.

"Why not come with us?"

Pike looks surprised. "I wouldn't want to intrude."

"Oh, you're not."

"He's not?" 

Marcus frowns, vaguely put out, and Abby sighs. "Well, I'm certainly not going to steal that from him, and I'm also not passing up the chance to try the source of so many of _my_ headaches." Unseen by Pike, she slides a reassuring hand down his back. He'd feel guilty for turning away a friend, and she'd pass up what might be her last drink. Inviting Pike along doesn't make this a rejection, only a postponement. "It would make a nice change from patching up the aftermath from someone else's binge."

Relaxing at the unspoken reassurance she hasn't changed her mind, Marcus looks to Pike. "She makes a fair point, Charles."

"All right, then. Where are we headed?"

"My quarters are closest." Marcus answers decisively before she can offer up her own rooms. He's been so painfully uncertain with her, a dancer attempting to ape steps he's seen others perform but never practiced on his own. Pike recenters him, somehow, bringing the various iterations of Marcus she's seen and compressing them down into a more cohesive whole. They make conversation as Marcus leads them through the remaining debris to his rooms, and Abby contributes only enough to keep up appearances, fascinated by their ease.

Marcus' quarters are smaller than her own but they feel emptier, lacking anything to take up space beyond the necessities of function. It's somehow disturbing to see a space that should reveal so much about the man who lives there remain stubbornly impersonal.

Pike seems to share her sentiment. "Would it kill you to put something on the walls?"

"It didn't seem necessary. I'm hardly here enough to appreciate anything I might put up." 

"I think that's part of his point, Marcus."

He raises an eyebrow, pretending at disapproval. "So it's the both of you aligned against me now, I take it?"

Abby and Pike look at each other, considering, and then she nods primly. "Something like that."

They've all grown up on the edge of one disaster or another. The truth lingers like an uninvited fourth guest, but ignoring the uglier aspects of reality has been second nature for all of them for so long it barely takes effort to ignore the ugliest one yet for a little longer. 

The alcohol provides a buffer of its own, making her limbs pleasantly loose as the room takes on a hazy glow around the edges. If she closes her eyes she can imagine they're seventeen again, putting away the entire bottle Jake smuggled a bottle into a party. Diana would be to her left, Thelonious to her right, and Jake right across the circle, Marcus a silent shadow to his right.

When she opens them the illusion is shattered, but the sting is minor balanced against everything else she's been disappointed by over the last year.

"Brings you back, doesn't it?" Pike unknowingly echoes her thoughts again, his grin companionable and encompassing her even as the memory he invokes is one she can't share. 

"It does." Marcus is the place where her memories and Pike's memories meet and mingle, her teenage years and his young adulthood contained in one man, and acting as a fulcrum rather than a pole suits him.

"Are you trying to tell me two guard trainees habitually ignored regulations?" Abby clucks with faux-disapproval, enjoying Pike's low chuckle as much as Marcus' mostly feigned indignation. "Really."

"I wouldn't say _habitually_ —"

"Thank you."

"—but I wouldn't say trainee, either."

Marcus sighs at her sharp bark of delighted laughter, giving Pike a look of mild betrayal. "And here I thought shared history might buy me a measure of silence." 

"Oh, no. If anything, it means I've got more reasons to let the good doctor in on all the stories she hasn't heard yet."

"Stories I haven't heard yet?" Abby props her chin on her hand, expectant. "You can't just leave it there."

"You heard the lady, Marcus." 

He launches into an enthusiastic rendition of the time Marcus had nearly shot their lieutenant by tripping over his own feet, and word by word scrapes away layers of detritus obscuring her view into their past. The young man Pike talks about isn't a shadow of Jake's pain, but a person in his own right; one she might have liked, if she had known him like Pike did.

"—end of the day, though? He made the shot." Pike's voice is threaded through with open affection, chuckle rumbling deep in his chest when Marcus waves off the praise. "You always did, don't try to be modest."

"It's not as if you were ever far behind my scores on the range." Marcus looks down at his hands, gathering his courage. "Why _did_ you leave the guard, Charles?" 

Pike's immediate, guilty stillness is an answer all its own, but he tries to play it off. "Doesn't matter now."

"I want to know, regardless."

"Marcus..."

"Charles."

Pike exhales a short, reluctantly amused breath. "You're not going to like it."

"And yet, I'm asking again."

"Ah, shit." Pike scrubs a hand over the back of his head, the beginnings of stubble making a delicate rasping sound against his palm, then draws her back into the conversation. "Look, Dr. Griffin—"

"Abby." No matter what he's about to say and how little she can already tell he thinks she'll like it, his insistence on her title is of his own making.

He looks thoughtful. "All right. Abby. Don't take any of this personally, all right? You're not your station, I understand that." She nods, and he continues. "I couldn't keep putting the jacket on and pretending I was proud to wear it." Old anger simmers behind the guilt, distant but steady like building thunder. "You watch them float a man for trying to save his sick kid's life, you have to wonder what the hell it is you're doing on that side of the line."

Marcus gapes, brow furrowing as he tries to fit what Pike admitted into the version of events he's been telling himself for years. "I had no idea you felt that way."

"I didn't tell you, did I?" Pike shakes his head, waving away Marcus' implied self-recrimination. "You saw the good in it. Somebody needed to, and I didn't want to be the thing that made you think twice."

Marcus looks like he wants to argue with the logic, face set in mulish lines. Then all at once he relaxes, letting the matter drop with a terse thank you before he steals back the bottle and drinks deep. 

Abby watches the two men graft new buds onto an old tree with shameless fascination. The rapport they've found with Marcus has been recent and hard-won, but the ease between Marcus and Pike feels lived in. They've been here before, she realizes with a start. Somewhere between Jake and right now, Marcus had allowed himself to be vulnerable in front of Pike, enough so that falling back into the habit comes as naturally as breathing. 

"You're welcome." Pike tugs the bottle away from Marcus again, rolling it between his palms idly before handing it to Abby. "I think it might be your turn."

She accepts it with a smile, raising the bottle in a toast, drawn into their two-person flow of intimacy by proxy. "I think you're right."

They make it through another good quarter of his gift before Pike brings up leaving. "Let me know when you want me to get out of here. I'll even leave the rest of the booze when I go." He's sprawled back against the room's lone chair, one arm propped on his knee to gesture towards the bottle magnanimously. "I wouldn't want to put a damper on the rest of the evening."

"The rest of the evening?" Abby's too relaxed to hold her amused snort back when Marcus blinks, looking for all the world like a child caught in a restricted access corridor, and he turns the same uncomprehending stare on her. "Did you..."

"She didn't tell me, Marcus." Pike nudges him with one booted foot, toe digging into the bend of his knee. "If you think station reps don't like to talk, you're fooling yourself. You show up to meetings together, people start to notice."

"I didn't think—Abby, I'm sorry, I didn't even consider—" He swallows, anxiety plain, and subsides.

He thinks she's going to be upset that people are gossiping. Abby barely contains a gusty sigh, aware of exactly how he'd take it. Stupid, wonderful man. "Marcus, of _course_ they were going to speculate. They always do. About everything."

"You don't care?" 

"Of course not." They're all going to die soon, and not-drunk doesn't mean sober. Abby swings a knee over his hips and looks down at him, selfishly pleased by the way that one movement seems to have made him forget anyone else is in the room. The way he looks at her is addictive, the heady rush of being wanted going to her head far faster than alcohol could. "I'd do this in front of them, too."

He lets her guide the kiss, head back and mouth pliant under hers, breathing in little pleased gasps. She forgets Pike for a moment, too, planting her hands on Marcus' shoulders for balance and tilting his head back to change the angle. When she releases him, Marcus sags back against the wall and stays there. 

"That was quite a performance." Pike swallows, clearing his throat. "I'm not complaining, but I thought I'd offer one more time to get out of here and let you two get down to it." His face is open, but under the genuine acceptance of either possibility is something she can't help but label as longing. 

"Is that what you want to do?"

Her question frees Marcus' tongue. "Charles, unless you'd like to leave..." His intent is clear when he looks to her for permission, and she nods. "Stay?"

"If Abby's all right with it..."

Pike's hips are wider than Marcus', forcing her stance to rely on leaning against his chest for stability. "Abby's more than all right with it." He tastes like liquor and something sweeter, a fruit she can't identify. After a beat to adjust, he kisses her back and curls an arm around her waist, serving as an anchor. Like Marcus he doesn't push for more than she's offered but he's less restrained, meeting her force with his own, tangling a hand in her hair and cupping the back of her skull protectively.

Marcus is watching with feverish intensity when they break apart, close enough to touch but too hesitant to close the circle. Pike scans Abby's face and whatever he finds tucks a smile into the corner of his mouth, secretive and pleased. He reaches for Marcus blindly, fisting his collar in one hand and dragging him in for a kiss of his own. They're a study in contrasts, and Abby hums happily taking it all in. She'd never felt any real desire to share Jake with someone else, but that doesn't mean she found the abstract idea objectionable.

Pike knocks his forehead gently into Marcus' before pulling away, running the tip of his tongue over his lower lip like he's savoring their taste. "Not exactly where I thought this would go." His teeth flash in a sudden grin. "Can't say I'm disappointed with how it's turning out, though." 

Climbing off his lap, Abby pulls her shirt off and leans against the wall to unfasten her boots and work on the rest of her clothes, looking up to catch a fond expression from Marcus and an assessing one from Pike. 

"No time like the present, I guess." He steps unceremoniously out of his pants, the muscles in his back flexing when he turns to toss them on the chair. She grins when he catches her looking, turning the quick look into a slow, head to toe perusal. He does the same, frankly admiring in a way that makes her stand a little taller, enjoying the slight catch in his breath. Marcus strips with a ghost of his customary precision, gaze pingponging between them. The amazed disbelief of a man faced with impossible bounty makes her want to kiss him—and so she does, performing a little when Pike's stare makes the skin on the back of her neck prickle.

Pike lays a gentle hand on the small of her back, the gun calluses of a former guard less clear than Marcus', but still recognizable. "Mind if I cut in?" She expects him to pull Marcus away but he puts his hand in hers instead, half-hard cock pressing into her belly when he draws her close. He doesn't tower over her quite as much as Marcus, but the kiss still forces him to stoop to meet her. 

Marcus' bedroom is only separated from sight by a half-wall and Abby guides Pike around it without breaking the kiss, trusting Marcus to follow unasked. He lands with a little oof when she backs him into the bed, hands tightening on her waist. There's another dip in the mattress as Marcus sits besides them, bare chest just brushing her shoulder, a source of heat and maddeningly inconsistent contact. 

"Abby." He breathes her name into her hair and Pike fades into the background, breath gone just slightly ragged at the open need in his voice. Kissing him is as natural as drawing her next breath and twice as necessary when he sounds like that. 

Pike traces absent circles on her back until the kiss ends and he trade looks with Marcus, sharing a conversation she's too kiss-drunk to decode before Marcus sets his hands on her waist, graceful fingers spanning her ribcage with obvious effort spent on gentling his grip. The ceiling looms above her, silver and black and littered with patches as he lays her back on the bed and kneels between her legs, relying on Pike's help to keep them both steady. It allows them to share the bed, even if she has to drape one leg over Marcus' shoulder and trust him to keep them both steady. 

The angle is just this side of precarious, but Marcus is solid and steady and she relaxes into his hold, inhale loud in the quiet when he thanks her wordlessly, pressing a kiss to her inner thigh.

"Marcus, please. Don't make me wait."

He doesn't, and Abby's breath stops entirely on a strangled moan when his next kiss on her clit, tongue darting out to circle the bud with unerring accuracy, bold in a way he isn't outside the bedroom; something as simple as whether an invitation to walk her home means he's welcome past the door mystifies him, but this he knows. He's confident in her body, in her physical responses. 

"He always was good at that." The sheet feels cool against her flushed cheek when she rolls her head to the side, taking in Charles' avid gaze. He winks at her, then tilts his head towards Marcus as if to say, _watch this_. "Some nights it was all I could do to get him off his knees so I could return the favor."

Between her thighs Marcus shudders, fingers tightening on her thighs as all his previous care flees in the aftermath of Pike's words, whimpering in agreement into her cunt, vibrations making her cry out. The blanket is rough under her back when she arches into his mouth, another sensation on the building bonfire. 

"Come on, Marcus, you heard the lady. Don't make her wait."

He loses all his finesse in the rush to make her come, and that loss of control only stokes her arousal higher, cunt spasming around the two fingers Marcus slips inside her. She writhes in his hands and Pike helps him keep her steady on the bed, Pike grinning appreciatively while Marcus only renews his attentions with enthusiasm, spurred on by how much she's affected by his touch. Pike's a furnace at her back and Marcus the same at her core, the heat enough to scorch her down the bone. 

Heaving a broken cry, Abby's hand flies down to clutch at Marcus' hair, holding him closer as orgasm crests and breaks like a wave. It leaving her feeling shaky and weak, the lights above the bed pulsing weakly in the same erratic rhythm as her heart. "Enough." Even his breath on her is too much, setting off ripples and threatening to tip oversensitive into painful. "Marcus, stop."

He rests his head on her thigh, mouthing something she can't make out against her skin, seemingly happy to stay there until someone makes him move. Pike fills that void, rolling onto his side so he can reach the edge of the bed without dislodging either of them, slipping off to kneel next to Marcus once he's navigated the little space available. "All right, soldier, up and at 'em."

There's a joke there she doesn't understand but Marcus chuckles weakly, levering himself up onto the bed with Pike's help. She curls herself loosely around his back, chin propped up on his chest so she can watch Pike take advantage of their shared history to nudge him closer and closer to the ledge without allowing him to tip over it. Once she's recovered her breath Abby kisses Marcus' shoulder and joins Pike on the floor, hips brushing companionably.

Pulling away and wiping his chin absently with the back of his hand, Pike opens his mouth to say something and Abby stops him with a kiss, captivated by the pink flash of his tongue and bruised lips. Looking down, Marcus groans like he's the one being kissed, a desperate sound wrenched from his throat by greedy hands.

Coughing, Pike attempts to catch his breath. "Whatever you want, it's all yours. I might need a minute." He tosses the confession out as a joke, but this close it's impossible to hide his response to the rising tension between them all.

"May I?" She gestures at Marcus, polite words completely at odds with what they're discussing. It's just off enough to make her stomach clench, pressing her thighs together as Pike nods agreeably. Abby takes his place, Marcus' inner thighs bracketing her shoulders. His muscles jump beneath her palms, fine tremors that speak volumes about the level of control required to stay still. How much he wants her is still a jolt to the system, heady and intoxicating.

"Is this all right?"

"Abby, please. You know it is. Just—" He shudders and goes silent when she cups him in one hand, the heat of his arousal burning against her palm. Looking down at her and catching the mischievous glint in her eyes, Marcus groans and lets his thighs open wider, pushing his hips up in a wordless plea.

She'd always loved this, had spent half a lifetime learning Jake's body until it was as familiar as her own. Marcus isn't Jake, but the mechanics are the same; with Pike murmuring affectionately obscene advice in her ear the room starts to contract and expand with her heartbeat, everything narrowing down to each sign Marcus is hanging onto control by the thinnest of threads.

"Abby, stop." It's the last thing in the world she wants to do, not when she can tell he's a hairsbreadth from letting go and spilling down her throat, but Abby pulls her mouth away with a soft pop. Marcus groans like she's struck him, hips following her without his permission. 

"Is everything all right?" 

He nods, running a hand over his face in an effort to recollect his thoughts. "More than. But I'm tired, and I'm not sure I have more than once in me tonight."

"And you'd rather it not be over already?" As much as Abby would like to indulge her desire to convince him otherwise, they have two weeks left to spend distracting themselves from the ever-faster approaching end. She pats his knee, sitting back on her heels and he exhales in obvious relief at her easy acceptance. 

"Exactly. And I thought..." Inexplicably, he looks to her to finish his thought and Abby blinks, trying to piece together what he's asking her before she can even think about answering it. It clicks in a moment later: _Pike_. He wants to fuck Pike, and he thinks this might be his last chance. The unspoken half of that assumption takes a little longer, but its no less appealing. This means he at least tenuously assumes it won't be the last night they spend together, that he's starting to believe he has a place with her at the end of things. The two realizations come in like waves, pulling her under and rolling her with arousal so strong her lips part in an instinctive gasp. Marcus sees it and blanches, hurrying to reassure her what he wants doesn't matter. "It's not important."

"Of course it is." Abby swallows any indignation; it might be on his behalf, but it's not the time to try and explain that to him, and patience will serve her better. Reaching up to cup his cheek in her hand and keep his face turned towards hers, she shakes her head. "We have two more weeks to do whatever we want. If you want something else tonight..." She looks pointedly at Pike. "I wouldn't mind."

"Neither would I." Pike's voice is a low rumble, tight with barely repressed enthusiasm. 

"You're sure?" The question is for her, not Pike. He's sure of Pike's desire.

"Marcus..." She leans in closer, letting everything she feels picturing what he wants warm her voice. "I'd love you watch you fuck him." He rocks backwards like she's struck him, cock pulsing warm and wet against her chest.

"One condition: only if one of you's got something to make it easier on me." Pike's easy humor carries a heated undertone now, some of that tightly leashed eagerness spilling free. "It's been a while since I've done this, and there's no way in hell it's happening without something better than spit. Not when he's packing what he is." 

Marcus nods towards the small metal chest functioning as a nightstand. "In there." He hesitates. "And it might be easier if you were already relaxed, Charles."

"Got any suggestions on how?"

"I do." Abby raises an eyebrow at him, invitation clear.

Pike's smile is filthy, promising things that makes her pulse speed up. "Sounds all right by me."

This time it's Marcus' turn to press himself against the wall, making barely enough room for another set of bodies on the bed. Pike is an inch or two shorter than Marcus, but he's large in a way even Jake wasn't, for all his height. _Solid_. She revels in it, pushing her hips up against him and inhaling sharply through her nose when the movement drags his cock along the length of her cunt, infuriatingly close to where she'd like him to be without ever coming close enough to satisfy.

"Charles..." Her voice cracks on a moan as he reaches between them and takes his cock in one hand, head kissing her entrance before sliding home in one slow push. Marcus' knee brushes against her ribcage when she shifts underneath Pike, testing her limits as he holds himself stock-still, allowing her to adjust to his girth. He's not quite as long as Marcus, but he's thicker, cock a constant pressure against her inner walls.

He moves his hips slowly, allowing her to relax around him before withdrawing and pushing in again, stealing her breath. Even before that first night, she and Marcus spent years learning each other as adversaries across the council table. Pike has been a bit player in her life, skirting the edges and only rarely directly influencing the action himself; she's been the same for him, and they have to learn a new language now.

Pike is overly careful like only a man his size can be, hands as gentle as if he cradled an egg between them. He's conscious of every ounce of pressure exerted, in careful control of each movement, and Abby can sense just how much he's holding back. He's thinking too hard about each movement to be finding any peace in it, and not for the first time she wonders if men determined to deny themselves reprieve from what they see as their duties are her lot in life.

"Charles." Abby reaches up to cup his cheek in one hand, touched at the same moment she'd like to roll her eyes. "It's all right."

"...what is?" His hips slow to a stop, and her little sigh of loss makes his eyes flash. 

"Slow is lovely. And if it's what you want, I'll enjoy it." She slides her hand down, tracing his tightly clenched jaw and the tendons straining in his neck. "But these tell me you're holding back, and if it's for my sake..." She nips at his lower lip, gentling the spot with a kiss. "You don't have to."

Pike tips his chin up to raise an eyebrow at Marcus. "Is she always like this?" It's not a complaint, and Abby pushes her pelvis up in encouragement, willing him to start moving again.

"Always." They share a grin above her head, but there's something like pride in Marcus' voice—pride or admiration, and she clenches tight around Pike in helpless response, feeling her own surge of pride when he inhales, loud as a gunshot in the silence.

"If you two are done discussing me while I'm right here..." 

Pike rolls his hips with more force than before, snatching her breath away before she can add more. They fall into a comfortable give and take, her hips rising to meet his before he bears her back down to the mattress again and again. Marcus runs covetous hands over them both, eyes bright with unabashed pleasure. She's so focused on him that Pike's next thrust catches her by surprise. The edges of his control are fraying and his thighs crash into her own with a meaty slap. "Shit, sorry."

He's stopped moving but Abby luxuriates in the aftermath, squeezing around him and letting out a pleased little hum. "No need to apologize."

"That worked for you, huh?" Speculative gleam in his eye, Pike pushes one of her knees up, pulling over one of Marcus' hand so he can hold it in place. "How about now?"

Abby shudders, nodding helplessly. The stretch pulls at her thigh in a way that promises a delicious ache later, the kind that only serves as a reminder of what she'd done to earn it, and how much she'd enjoyed it. Pike pushes in again, the new angle deeper, driving breath from her lungs.

She feels like a wineskin filled to bursting, barely holding her shape as impossible pressure builds and builds without a way to relieve the tension. Marcus strokes her hair soothingly when she tosses her head and Abby barely feels it, so focused on the drag of Pike's cock and her own impending orgasm everything else is just so much noise, distraction from getting what she wants.

Her hoarse shout bounces off the walls when Marcus reaches between their bodies to draw a circle around her clit, the single touch enough to disintegrate the last vestiges of control. Pike swallows the sound with a kiss, hips crashing into hers with renewed force once, twice, three times; then he lays still in the cradle of her hips, panting. "I'd say I'm as relaxed as I'll get." He laughs, then winces when Abby clenches around his softening cock in instinctive response, carefully pulling out and levering himself off her. 

"In that case..." She sits up, gesturing at her spot on the bed and switching places with Marcus, pausing a moment to wish she'd had the presence of mind to insist that they should default to the quarters with the largest bed. 

They make do with what they have, and the lack of room at least gives a perfect view of Marcus' hand between Pike's legs, slick fingers drawing gentle circles around his hole before pushing inside. Pike's body yields to Marcus, opening bit by bit like Jake had for her, calling back a dim echo of the way she'd felt learning how to painstakingly prepare a man so you can fuck him. When Marcus works a second finger in, torturously slow, Abby groans impatiently along with Pike.

"Shhh." Marcus soothes them both, running his free hand over the broad expanse of Pike's back, affectionate and nostalgic. "You're the one who insisted I take the time to do this right."

"I said use some damn lube, not take forever." Pike growls in frustration, reaching back blindly to clutch at Marcus' arm. "I'm fine. All ready. I swear to God, Kane, if you don't move your ass—"

Marcus pulls his fingers free and Pike sucks in a breath, letting it out in an explosive rush and relaxing his body into the bed, knuckles going white when Marcus lines his cock up and presses inside.

"There we go." Pike grits the words out from between clenched teeth, still trying to adjust to Marcus size. "Christ, I missed this."

He can't see Marcus' face go soft, past exposed like a felled tree's rings, but Abby can. He brings a hand up, patting Pike's shoulder before using it to brace himself against the bed and allow for more leverage. "So did I."

She knows countless ways to deliver a clinical explanation of how two men might make love, if only to help explain it and make sure no one ends up in her care down to nothing more than the kind of ignorance that comes from inexperience. Watching it happen is different. The theory can't show her how Marcus' jaw works when he's trying to ensure he hits Pike's prostate, or the way Pike pounds a fist on the bed when he succeeds, rutting into the sheets with renewed vigor. They're both too tired and on edge to last long, and Marcus' breathing is already taking on the little hitch at the end of each inhale that means he's fighting a losing battle to hold back.

When Pike stiffens as though he's been struck with a shocklash and then melts bonelessly into the bed, Marcus follows after one last erratic thrust, collapsing on top of him. They stay like that, suspended in the release of the moment until Marcus sighs, deep in his chest, and separates their bodies, perching on the very edge of the bed while Pike moves closer to Abby. It's a precarious arrangement, one that can't last all night, but for the moment none of them are willing to turn away from comfort.

Abby laughs breathlessly, picturing Sinclair's face if he found out the sharp turn his revenge had taken. She can't begrudge him petty revenge, not now, but she can be pleased it ended up here and spared Marcus embarrassment.

"What's so funny?" Marcus lifts his head, bleary eyes already half-shut.

"I was just thinking this can't be what Sinclair hoped would happen when he sent Charles after us."

Marcus and Pike join in her laughter, the low masculine rumble a counterpoint to her own higher notes. They subside into comfortable silence in slow increments, Abby's own eyes going heavy lidded. 

With a regretful huff of breath, Pike pulls away from her side, leaving a cold spot Marcus hurries to cover with the blanket.

"Two's gonna be a tough fit in here, and I've got places to be before I call it a night."

"Passing out more contraband?" Marcus arches a brow.

"Something along those lines." Pike laughs, rising from the bed abashedly naked. He's an impressive figure, and without the haze of alcohol and then arousal clouding her mind she takes in the play of muscles under his skin with a doctor's eye. He feels her gaze and sketches a lazy salute, giving her another moment to appreciate his naked body before pulling on his pants. "The two of you look comfortable, don't get up."

Abby hadn't been planning to leave Marcus' bed again without at least six hours of sleep behind her, and Pike's permission to be rude only makes it that much harder to keep her eyes open.

"Get some food when you wake up, both of you."

Marcus yawns, lifting his hand from rhythmically stroking her hair to wave a vague acknowledgment. "Of course."

"I'll make sure he eats."

"Make sure you both do." His fondness encompasses her when he smiles, shaking his head. "Hell of an evening." Once his boots are fastened, he crosses to the door, ignoring the bottle on the floor as if he's forgotten about it. "Marcus. Abby."

When the door shuts with a rattle, Marcus turns on his side so he can meet her eyes. "Thank you."

"Considering what just happened, maybe I should be thanking you." She sighs, leaning close to kiss the wrinkled skin between his brows. "You don't need to thank me."

"What if I want to?" 

"...fine, you're welcome." Even a mild challenge on emotional grounds is a victory. Abby can't help but wish it wasn't at the expense of her argument, but if thanking her is the sticking place so be it. "He means a lot to you."

"He was my friend." He looks down again, caught in some internal battle. "After Jake... well."

After Jake he'd needed someone, and Pike had been there. Resting a hand on his arm, Abby calls his attention away from the past and towards what little they have left. "We have two weeks. You can always ask him to come back."

Marcus looks conflicted, fingertips beating out an agitated tattoo against the bed. "Do you want him to?"

Abby considers his question with the same seriousness he'd given hers. "I wouldn't mind it, no. But I also wouldn't mind it if you didn't."

"I don't want to share what little time is left," he confesses in a low voice, picking at the blanket. "Not even with Charles."

"Then we won't." He sighs with relief, nuzzling into her hair. "But after tonight, we're spending that time in my quarters. We have two weeks, and I'm not wasting it on a smaller bed." 

He laughs, agreeing to the condition without a fight. "Agreed." Lapsing into silence, he strokes a hand down her side, pulling words for what he feels together. " _We_ have two weeks." The meaning is entirely different with his new emphasis, and Abby feels the momentum between them shift. The conclusion is a predetermined one, but how they get there is something they can control.

"We do." She kisses the closest skin in reach, the wiry hair covering her chest tickling her lips. "But we can talk about what to do with it later, all right?" There's hardly enough space to call his bed comfortable and the sheets are filthy, but Abby can't imagine wanting to move. They all stink of bleaker things than sex, things they earned on the back of Diana's betrayal, and she's so tired the idea of smelling worse than she already does sounds wonderful so long as sleep is involved.

"Later." He gives the word the weight of an oath even through a wide yawn. "Good night, Abby."

His heartbeat is a metronome, thudding away beneath her ear without any deference to the limited time left to them and guiding them both into sleep.


End file.
